Zoo Admin
'Zoo Admin', or ZA is a Zoo Tycoon fansite and message board first started in 2001, notable for its long role in the community's history. First hosted on Tripod before the first game was officially released, it was later absorbed into the Ogresnet hosting community later that year. It became the undisputed premiere community for both Zoo Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon 2 for five years, hosting exclusive information and interviews from/with Blue Fang Games during the development of the second game and its expansions. After Ogresnet shut down, a costly serve move and extended downtime lead to a rapid decrease in activity. After a three-year absence, Zoo Admin and its download sites reappeared online in summer 2019 with both original and brand new content, now at a .org domain name. It has been long affiliated with the Zoo Tycoon Community Downloads Directory and Zoo Tycoon 2 Designing Centre. Overview The most familiar incarnation of the site (2001 - 2006) was hosted on Ogresnet and integrated the expensive vBulletin forum software with a main site that featured a wealth of information for Zoo Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon 2, as well as funny pictures, contests, and an integrated download database system. The home page had a small area of recently updated forum topics, usually the most recent five, over a dedicated newsfeed that included exclusive information from Blue Fang Games. The forums featured four sections traditionally for each game (General, Tips and Tricks, Show and Tell, & Current Projects) The most recent incarnation was divided into four sections, each as a separate SMF-For-Free message board: the original forum converted to the software with much the same layout, a forum for ZT1 downloads sorted by type, a forum for ZT2 downloads also sorted by type, and the Zoo Admin Archives which was the original conversion from the VBulletin version hosted on Ogresnet. It's affiliates ZT1 Designers' Guild and the Zoo Tycoon Community Downloads Directory who were also founded by the administrator of Zoo Admin are also hosted on similar software. The original Zoo Admin on Tripod was a fairly generic, small site with information on the early beta testing of Zoo Tycoon and a news section featuring reviews of the game, and a couple small zoo downloads. The site was obtained for it's former owner sometime in September 2001 and went live on the Ogresnet network on October 13, 2001 just 3 days before Zoo tycoon was officially released in stores. Downtime In 2006, shortly after the release of Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania, the owner of Ogresnet announced the network would be shutting down, and many of the other websites on the network had become inactive, and the vBulletin licenses and servers were all very costly to run. The administrators of Zoo Admin purchased the Ogresnet servers and began the long, difficult process of moving the old site information and also converting it to a new format. The "Zoo Admin on Vacation" website was set up to keep users busy in the meantime and to discuss Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals, which was due to come out in a few months. Confirmations by Blue Fang Games and general discussion went on as usual until 2008, when administrators announced that ZA would be coming back soon. Unfortunately in the nearly two-year hiatus many users had lost interest in the site, including some staff members. In August 2014, it briefly went offline, but returned until February 2016, when it went offline once more, which was reported as permanent. Resurrection In December 2018 a decision was made to bring the sites back online and after a long process of locating database backups the site returned in April 2019, Yellowrose/Trizzy returned to the community and made significant efforts to reopen Zoo Admin and its download sites to the community, and began designing new content including packs based on Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. The repopening was partially in response to a growing subculture, at Zoo Tycoon on Discord, interested in classic content styled similarly to the original games. They are now located at ZooAdmin.org instead of the ZooAdmin.net domain. Staff The site's staff were made up of legal adults, mostly from North America, and included Eagle_One and Quivaz, who later split to found the short-lived Zoo Tycoon Empire fansite, as well as Aussie Koala and RedNotDead, known for their strictness, and Texgnome1 and moderators such as Penguinman, Mikaboshi and ShenTirag, who later founded Zoo Tycoon 2 Designing Centre. The longest-serving staff member and current owner/webmistress is Yellowrose, a longtime staff member from Ontario, Canada. Fern, a member of the community since it's inception, was also staff there, and one of the only staff members still active in the community, at Zoo Tek Phoenix. Downloads The site was the first to create downloads for Zoo Tycoon 1 and 2'' and as by far the largest amount of downloads available, with nearly 3,000 files in total. For ZT2 alone, Zoo Admin contains nearly 800, far surpassing the next highest site. Zoo Admins downloads are tested for high quality, including donations/gifts, and are available to all without registering or requiring a post count. Zoo Admin is home to hundreds of downloads, and was the second website to discover ''Zoo Tycoon 2 downloads were possible, with SilesianTomcat's Somalian Wild Ass as the first ZT2 release. Later, after the release of Marine Mania, a group named Artifex, which had formed on ZA among talented designers like Penguinman, Mikaboshi and SilesianTomcat set out to create user-made expansion packs, split off from the main ZA site for their own website, which would later become the inspiration for similar groups like Mysterious Map Marvels. ZT1 files were still tested regularly by Fern and Jay for compatibility and .UCA issues until it's closure. These downloads will be migrated to Zoo Tek Phoenix. Criticism Throughout it's near two decades of existence, Zoo Admin was only very briefly subject to controversy and criticism, during a period when the administration had been cracking down significantly. During the administration of Aussie Koala, also banned several of the more prominent members of Zoo Tek, although under the new site owners the relationship has stabilized. Many early members of ZTV had formerly been banned from Zoo Admin, including rpominent staff members, such as Fennec Nichov and beluga for their claims of being non-human, and Zooasaurus Rex being banned for posting another designer's download, which he maintained was unintentional. None of these issues are considered extant today, however. External Links *Zoo Admin (current link) *Zoo Admin (formerly) Category:Fansites Category:Inactive fansites Category:Deleted fansites